• Journal of Ethics
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• no.82
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• pp.73-125
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• 2011

This article aims to search for moral educational implication of J. D. Greene's recent neuro-scientific approaches to deontological ethics. Recently new technique in neuroscience such as fMRI is applied to moral and social psychological concepts or terms, and 'affective primacy' and 'automaticity' principles are highlighted as basic concepts of the new paradigm. When these principles are introduced to ethical theories, it makes rooms of new and different interpretations of them. J. D. Greene et al. claim that deontological moral judgments or theories are just a kind of post hoc rationalization for intuitions or emotions by ways of neuroscientific findings and evolutionary interpretation. For example, Kant's categorical imperative in which a maxim should be universalizable to be as a principle, might be a product of moral intuition. Firstly this article tries to search for intellectual backgrounds of the social intuitionalism where Greens' thought originates. Secondly, this article tries to collect and summarize his arguments about moral dilemma responses, personal-impersonal dilemma catergorizing hypothesis, fMRI data interpretations by ways of evolutionary theory, cultural and social psychological theories, application to deontological and consequential theories, and his suggestion that deontological ethics shoud be rejected as a normative ethical thought and consequentialism be a promising theory etc. Thirdly, this tries to analyse and critically exam those aspects and argumentation, especially from viewpoints of the ethicists whose various strategies seek to defeat Greene's claims. Fourthly, this article criticizes that his arguments make a few critical mistakes in methodology and data interpretation. Last, this article seeks to find its implications for moral education in korea, in which in spite of incomplete argumentation of his neuroscientific approach to morality, neuroethics needs to be introduced as a new approach and educational content, and critical materials as well.

• Cross-Cultural Studies
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• v.48
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• pp.361-389
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• 2017

This essay examines 'precarity politics' by Judith Butler, a well-known gender theorist and queer philosopher, in Notes Towards a Performative Theory of Assembly (2015) focused on concepts as unchosen cohabitation of Hannah Arendt and unwilled proximity of Emmanuel Levinas. Butler's precarity politics is the condition of our dispossessed political beings with fundamental vulnerability and interdependency that cannot choose with whom we will live on this Earth. Butler's political ethics is twofold: on one hand, she examines significance of 'action'' the most significant vita activa in the public area, and 'plurality'' the condition-not only the necessary condition but the possible condition-for a political life suggested by Hannah Arendt in Human Condition; on the other hand, Butler reflects upon global precarity based on a diasporic precarious life in the social world towards freedom and equality. Unchosen cohabitation of plural humans on Earth, and global pervasion of precarity, that indicates "politically induced condition in which certain populations suffer from failing social and economic networks of support and become differentially exposed to injury, violence, and death," so called "differential distribution of precariousness," are practical possibilities of ethical and equal cohabitation of different ethnic groups in the social world. Ethical obligations or ethical demand to respond to others' suffering in distance and proximity originated from precarity politics, mentioned in Precarious Life, Parting Ways, and Frames of War, could be non-foundational joint of plural people living together globally. We should presume the 'reversibility' of distance and proximity in others' suffering, based on responsiveness and responsibility of others, if we want to stay attuned to the pain of others we never chose to live together. That is the significance of Butler's 'precarity politics' with 'ethical obligation' to accept 'unchosen plurality' of living population on Earth, and 'reversibility between of distance and proximity,' in her 'new plural and embodied body politics' or 'new corporeal ontology', through human primary vulnerability, fundamental interdependency, being exposed and responsive to suffering of others.

• Journal of Korean Philosophical Society
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• v.148
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• pp.129-156
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• 2018

Recently, a lot of articles and writings defending animal right and welfare are introduced into our society. For example, P. Singer's Animal Liberation, T. Regan's The Case for Animal Rights, and J. Rachels's Created From Animal are representative writings of animal ethics. In his books, P. Singer maintains that all animals are equal. T. Regan insisted that animals as a subject of a life have rights. J. Rachels's moral individualism is that how an individual may be treated is to be determined, not by considering his group membership, but by considering his own particular characteristics. Interestingly, they use common argument called 'argument from marginal cases' to justify their theoretical positions. If we can disclose the weakness of the argument, all kinds of animal ethics which defend animal right and welfare such as animal liberation theory, animal rights theory and moral individualism will collapse. In this paper, I will examine the concrete contexts in which Singer, Regan and Rachels make use of the argument. And I will critically examine the argument. Lastly I will show that the attempt to deny the difference of species is unsuccessful.

• Cross-Cultural Studies
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• v.26
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• pp.173-200
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• 2012

This paper examines ${\acute{e}}pist{\acute{e}}m{\grave{e}}$ of ${\acute{e}}criture$ and its politics in Kim, Soo-Yung's poems, focusing on 'language-letter' images such as "speech", "language", "printing type", "letter", "brush", "book" and so on. While the previous papers fail to present the overall framework of analysis on 'language-${\acute{e}}criture$' images and to show political dimensions of discourse analysis, this paper tries to overcome these limitations. It explains images of 'speech' and 'language' on the basis of Heidegger's ontological thought, and analyzes writing-images such as 'type', 'letters' using Derrida's concepts of 'archi-${\acute{e}}criture$' and '${\acute{e}}criture$'. It also gives a new name to multiple images of 'book' in his poems as 'politics of ${\acute{e}}criture$' based on problematic such as Badiou's 'ethics of truths' and Derrida's '${\acute{e}}criture$'.

• Journal of Science and Technology Studies
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• v.1 no.2 s.2
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• pp.291-309
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• 2001

Let us critique the common notion that ethical examination retards the development of science and technology. First, I shall reformulate such a notion in the following statements: 'To survive the competitive society, we must develop science and technology before others do. It will cost too much time to examine ethically the influence of developing science and technology. Therefore, we cannot but suspend the ethical matters until we have developed science and technology.' I will then show that even if we reconstruct the above argument in a deductively valid form, the second premise is not necessarily true and that we cannot accept the conclusion because the meaning of 'competing for better lives', in the first premise, is diverse. Especially if we are to take into account all the areas of ethics and base them upon the autonomous ethics of democratic societies, it cannot be concluded that ethics is an enemy of developing science and technology. In addition, I will argue that our moral considerations must be based upon autonomous ethics in order to make the development of science and technology contribute to enhancing the desirable science culture. In the midst of making the above argument, it is proposed that the title of the 1aw of bio-ethics be changed, for it has a mistaken implication that acting against ethics results in legal punishments.

• Korean Journal of Medical Ethics
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• v.21 no.4
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• pp.301-315
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• 2018

Women have been entrusted with responsibility for pregnancy, childbirth, and nurturing by means of socially imposed 'maternity' along with their physical characteristics. Abortion too involves the bodies of women, and women are the ones most affected by it. However, women do not yet have the right of self-determination over their bodies. In the "pro-choice versus pro-life" abortion debate in South Korea, women's self-determination is often treated with less significance than the alleged "respect for life." Moreover, as Korea's declining fertility rate has become a serious social problem, women's perspectives on the issue of abortion have been sidelined. Yet even in this context, there is a double standard between the treatment of disabled and able-bodied women. The purpose of this study is to examine the issue of self-determination, especially for women with disabilities, from the perspective of a capability approach. The following three recommendations are proposed: (a) that the various contextual variables of disabled women are included in the concept of self-determination; (b) that a solid relationship between individuals and communities is established in order to ensure the realization of the right of self-determination for disabled women; and (c) that the discourse of "reproduction rights" (i.e. comprehensive rights of women with disabilities) be expanded.

• Journal of Ethics
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• no.77
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• pp.73-112
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• 2010

This study aims to explore the character and problem of multicultural society in Korea in terms of the concept of moral panics. Its major issues are dealt with as follows: Firstly, this essay will apply two concepts of culture in multiculturalism - the pattern of meaning and a study of perfection- to three degrees of multicultural members: by individual, by groups and by a society as a whole. In this approach, moral panics of multicultural society in Korea have been manipulated by the secondary definitions like Korean government and media. In this study, however, the resource of the panics would be seen as nationalism in Korean history. To remove it in this essay, the conception of the pattern of meaning, which makes members understand others outer their norms, should be harmonized with that of a study of perfection by which they have identities. Secondly, the main subject of multiculturalism in Korea should at least be majority (groups)-Korean, not minority (groups)-foreigners. A stereotype of foreigners by majority is an image distorted by nationalities and races. People, for example, with the white skin from advanced countries are recognized as superior, while those born in the countries of Southeast Asia are, consciously or unconsciously, discriminated and have low positions due to socio-economic stratification in Korea. In this sense, a study of multicultural society in Korea should go forward to the inner direction to majority, because it is one of the real moral panics in Korea. In conclusion, it is important that there must be a study of identity which we can have of others in multicultural studies of Korea. It enables us to meet the conception of diversity. In that Korean government and media have neglected the danger of nationalism, it is also necessary that this study have any foundation of morality in ethics, which can give useful alternatives to the given polices of the secondary definitions.

• Journal of the Daesoon Academy of Sciences
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• v.27
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• pp.283-317
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• 2016

This research is an attempt to detail the multi-layered ethical characteristics of 'mutual beneficence', shown in the principle of 'guarding against self-deception' in Daesoon Thought while focusing on its major differences as well as the similarities with Kantian and Utilitarian ethical views. In these Western ethical perspectives, the concept of self-deception has received a considerable amount of attention, centering on the context of natural rights and contract theory. Meanwhile, in Daesoon Thought, 'guarding against self-deception' is presented as one of the principal objectives as well as the method or deontological ground for practice. It further encompasses the features of virtue ethics oriented toward the perfection of Dao. Here, the deontological aspect is interlinked with the concept of cultivation and the pursuit of ethics and morals. Hence this makes it a necessary condition for achieving the perfection of Dao, and likewise renders the practice of 'guarding against self-deception' more active through facilitating mutual relations based on the expansion model wherein human nature is characterized as possessing innate goodness. With regard to the tenet of 'resolution of grievances for mutual beneficence,' this concept is presented as a positive ground for practicing virtues toward others without forming grudges. Furthermore, as long as it reveals the great principle of humanity built on conscience, it will come to harmonize practitioners with others and spirits in an expression of beneficence. Moreover, originating in the Dao of Deities, guarding against self-deception is expressed as a form of life ethics and can be suggested as a new alternative for the model of virtue ethics proposed by Nussbaum. All in all, there is a natural causal relationship by which 'guarding against self-deception' in accord one's own conscience and the principle of humanity as a pursuit of perfect virtues in Dao result in the fulfillment of mutual beneficence. This readily akin to how gravity causes water to flow from high ground to low ground. Consequently, these relational features of mutual beneficence can serve an effective alternative to the Western ethical views which also address the need to overcome the egoistic mind which is liable to self-interest and alienation.

• Journal of Korean Philosophical Society
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• v.142
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• pp.323-347
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• 2017

In the 1980s, traditional analytic epistemology was abuzz with proposed solutions to the Gettier problem, responses to skepticism, newly minted objections to a variety of internalist and externalist theories of justification, and enthusiastic criticisms of foundationalism and coherentism. Debates over competing analyses of knowledge and justification raged. Since then, virtue epistemology has become a diverse and increasingly well-established field. I think that most researchers in Korea will feel the name "virtue epistemology" itself as strange or unfamiliar. It is primarily because virtue epistemology has a brief history. So, virtue epistemology did not present many opportunities for its introduction to Korean researchers. Another reason is that the name of "virtue epistemology" itself has a strangeness or unfamiliarity. Since the concept of "virtue" has mainly been used in moral or ethical contexts, virtue ethics is very familiar to most people. In contrast, the name of "virtue epistemology", combining "virtue" with "epistemology", is strange to many people. This paper primarily aims to introduce virtue epistemology in our philosophical society. What is it? How is virtue epistemology different from traditional analytic epistemology? What is the nature of virtues in virtue epistemology? What are the advantages, urgent tasks, and prospects of virtue epistemology? Focusing on these questions, I seek to understand the background to the rise of virtue epistemology, the differences and relations between virtue epistemology and traditional epistemology, and the nature of virtue and the main theories in virtue epistemology.

• Journal of Korean Philosophical Society
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• v.129
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• pp.341-366
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• 2014

This Thesis analyzes the two forms of Confucian Golden Rule(Shu恕) that were proposed by Zhu Xi朱熹 and Dai Zhen戴震 each other, and researches their ethical significances. Zhu Xi don't regards Shu as universal ethics by itself, while Dai Zhen identify Shu as the ground of universal ethics, According to this thesis, Zhu Xi thought that Shu has a danger of immoral misusage in some situation because Shu is so simplistic form of identification. Because this, Zhu Xi, for the purpose of blocking arbitrary misusage of Shu and holding universality of ethics, suggests that moral sincerity(Zhong忠) of subject is necessary to practice of Shu. Dai Zhen, however, criticizes Zhu Xi's Ethical Structure. In Dai Zhen's view, Zhu xi's idea that the subject has to establish his own morality through Zhong before practice Shu cannot make him escape from subjectivity necessarily. In this point, Dai Zhen revive Shu. His Shu concept means the reciprocity of human desires to each other. But Dai Zhen's idea, as Zhu Xi worried, has a danger of immoral misusage in some situation. On this problem, this thesis elucidates that Dai Zhen' desire concept is not individual various desires but is common basic desires of existence, thereby attests that Dai Zhen's Shu is safe from immoral misusage. This thesis claim that even if Zhu Xi's and Dai Zhen's position is so different, the ethical aims of two scholars is same. They both attempted to overcome the evil of subjectivism and to procure universality of ethics, furthermore to accomplish social fairness. Consequently, this thesis claims that two scholars both walked in same way because both wanted to establish the universality of Shu and to pursue realization of social fairness.